Hamburg, 26.05.2025: Pelting Rain and Stifling Duvets

Blankenese view

I slept badly last night, in contrast to the night before. I don’t think I’ll ever accustom myself to the German custom of sleeping with a heavy duvet covering even in the heat of summer. It’s not at all cold right now, somewhere — in the mid-60sF — but people continue to have heat on in their houses and other buildings continue running heat. And when we walked to the park yesterday and again walked outside this morning, W. and K. insisted we bundle up and have neck scarves against the cold. Everyone we encountered was dressed that way. 

Hamburg 14.6.1998: English Gardens, Cultural Diversity

In Hamburg now after a long tiring drive yesterday from the Oberpfalz. I found myself feeling sick—headachy with stomach upset, perhaps due to a heavy meal of Käsespätzle the evening before. The afternoon before that we gave to rest in the cool rainy weather, after a drive to Waldmünchen to see Herr Ederer, and then to Teunz to get postcards for Steve’s correspondent in Wisconsin, and to Tiefenbach to buy a rug from the Hutterer weaving shop.

In some ways, glad to leave the Bavarian countryside, which I had begun to find oppressive. Perhaps it was that everyone seemed to know our business. But it was even more the sense of being watched, and not always amicably.

The countryside itself is so pretty, though—mystical-seeming in the damp weather. The greens, the tranquility, the small, carefully groomed fields beneath scudding clouds, with villages everywhere the eye looks, are pleasant to see, if not to live in (one senses).

I slept much of the way north so can’t comment much on what we saw. The Bavarian border area, especially the city of Hof, seemed grimy and industrial. The former East German lands had a similar character, with substandard roads and huge fields—a carryover from the Communist period?

Hamburg begins to feel very homelike. After a very happy dinner at Erhard C.’s house last night, (with Wolfram and Karin, Erhard’s daughter and husband, a South African woman, Sandra), we slept long, and awoke to attend a Gottesdienst at the Akademie, followed by Mittagessen prepared by the Akademie students.

Writing now at a café overlooking the Elbe off the Elbchausee’s Wandernweg. Pretty weather, sunny with very brisk winds. Roses and lavender are in full bloom in the gardens of Blankenese, often planted together, with foxgloves, daisies, and poppies gone to see in the terraced gardens behind. The English style everywhere in evidence.

Erhard tells me the Jenischpark near Niendstedt, which he regards as the most beautiful part in Hamburg, once had a French formal garden—apparently when it was a landed gentleman’s estate in the 18th century. In the 19th century, a Scottish gardener was brought in to replant it in English style.

Erhard also tells me that when the Jews were expelled from Spain after 1492, many came here, and laid a foundation for Hamburg’s economic vitality and cultural diversity. As he put it, Grosse Freiheit in Altona is no accident: here, Protestant, Catholic, and Jew worshiped side by side in an atmosphere of freedom of conscience.

He also told me of a paper he’s written about a baron who had an estate northeast of Hamburg, who, in the 18th century, brought black slaves from St. Thomas to be educated in various trades for which it was difficult to find white laborers willing to go to the Caribbean. These slaves were Moravians, who worshiped in Altona, and were baptized on the baron’s estate.

Yesterday, driving into Hamburg, signs everywhere reading, “Wir sind auch Familie,” and demanding adoption rights for gays and lesbians. Wolfram tells us these were connected to a mass rally for gays and lesbians held yesterday.

Hamburg 17.12.93: Advent Wreaths and Ausländer Aus

Sitting in a café in Blankenese where we’ve just ordered coffee and torte. On the table an Advent wreath, which the waitress lit—three candles. A beautiful sonata on the piano, which I recognize but can’t name.

Outside, the wind is blowing briskly off the Elbe: I see a row of cedars bending over. But of course we know the wind is cold, because we just walked in, after having taken the Wandernweg from Nienstedt. The sun shines intermittently, then rain in between.

Yesterday, our presentation, which was actually at the University, not the Missionsakademie. It seemed to go well—students fairly attentive, and asking what we do to combat racism, whether there is an international neo-Nazi connection to the Ku Klux Klan, etc.: all those serious questions German students ask.

Then E. drove us to the Missionsakademie, where we immediately attended a Gottesdienst prior to a Christmas party. Barbara M. led the former, in the little chapel beneath the guesthouse. Very moving. Barbara M. had a Christmas story, most of which I got, because it was directed to the children (who had just had a Christmas party with presents). The gist was that the three kings could not identify Jesus, who had nothing to do with their gold and silver (or, in the case of one, with his intellectualism). But a child could: he saw the Niedrigkeit of the Christ child, his helplessness and dependence on others.

(N.B. If I write any theological autobiography pieces, talk about how Gélin’s book on the poor of Yahweh deeply influenced me as I began to read theology.)

All this was the more touching, because it was addressed to a multiracial, multicultural audience, mostly people from cast-off countries.

After the reading, we read a litany, in which Barbara M. voiced the sentiments of common sense and power (war and poverty are ineradicable, the only hope is in heaven, etc.), and the audience responded by reading biblical passages about Christ which affirmed his this-worldly salvific import.

Then the party. We were seated at a table with Frau R., the cook (whom we had met last time), a student from Togo, a young German woman from Bochum who will be ordained and pastor a church, and S.W., a theology student from near Lübeck, who will be ordained.

The food was good, if unexciting—a pork roast stuffed with apricots and prunes, a pork tenderloin, a spanakopita, fish in innumerable salads and smoked, two kinds of cole slaw, and a Römmergrot and a chocolate mousse, with bread and cheese, of course.

The big surprise: at table, I mentioned Thomas Mann to S.W. (when I found he was from near Lübeck), Death in Venice, and he winked as he told me the book was a favorite of his. Then, when the young German woman told Steve the “Father” Christmas at the children’s party was a woman, Steve mentioned that this transgressed gender lines, and S.W. winked again.

Gradually S.W. and I found ourselves sitting side by side at the table and I admired his ring. He told me it’s a Ghanaian ring given to men who enter a certain “club” as they mature. It was given to him by a Ghanaian friend.

One thing led to another, as they say, and he offered to take us out to Café Gnosa in St. Georg, which we had wanted to see. I can’t say I loved it. I can count on my fingertips the number of times in my life I have been to a gay bar, so I have nothing really to judge the experience by. Maybe it was the hour or the season, but it seemed a bit dreary—a long, narrow, smoky place with two rooms and tables along the wall.

The waiter was very sweet, though, and we met a cabaret performer and his boyfriend, who were enchanting—or whatever is between nice and enchanting.

Then home, very late, and I slept hardly at all. At 10:30, E. took us to the Stafford café in Nienstedt Marktplatz, where we had been before, for a breakfast of bread (and bread and bread), eggs, sliced meat and cheese, jam, butter, and coffee.

He told us the future of the Missionsakademie is in doubt. As more and more Germans declare no church membership and the church thus loses the 9% tax they pay, there’s talk of financial crisis, compounded by the economic hardships they country faces, the debt the West has assumed from East Germany, and, in particular, the debt the Western church has assumed from the East. At bottom, though, it’s political, he believes, and the talk of cutting expenses by closing the Missionsakademie is really motivated (he believes) by resistance to the “frivolous” third-world concerns of the Akademie.

E. told us that the front door of the Missionsakademie has been sprayed with anti-foreign neo-Nazi slogans. He and others have told us that Bischöfin Maria Jespen of Hamburg is increasingly embattled, attacked by the Right for her socially critical stands.

And now back to Nienstedt and, I hope, to sleep before our evening lecture.

Hamburg, 12.6.90: Purple Rhododendrons and Crouching Lions

This is the day arranged for my meeting with Dorothee Sölle. I feel (9:30 A.M.) very washed out, not vibrant for such a meeting.

Had German breakfast here at the academy of bread and jams, cheese, coffee. The day is bright and sunny, only a touch cool. We plan to walk some now . . . .

Writing this at lecture by Dorothee Sölle at the University of Hamburg. The lecture is about the suffering servant of Isaiah. Since it’s in German, I understand only some of it.

We have just come from having Abendbrot at her house: dark and light bread, several cheeses, Schinken, Leberkäse, radishes, cornichons, tomatoes, wine, and peaches. At the small table in the kitchen, a simple plank table with benches and chairs, were Dorothee Sölle, her husband Fulbert Stefensky, and what I assume were two daughters and a son, with some Bolivian grandchildren, Joanna and Carlos.

Prior to Abendbrot, we spent an hour and a half discussing my Singing in a Strange Land manuscript. Dorothee Sölle thought that the ms. does a good job of telling the stories of the marginal, but is weak in the area of social analysis. Using Holland and Henriot’s pastoral circle, she pointed out that in her judgment, the stories move too quickly from telling the tale to theological reflection, bypassing analysis of the factors that create the situation in which the narrators find themselves.

We talked about ways to deal with this problem. Wolfram W. made two excellent suggestions: 1) the characters ought to be presented as gifted, not merely pitiable objects of charity; 2) I should interview some “real people” like those depicted, and incorporate their words in the narratives.

We discussed all this on an upstairs patio in the late afternoon sun. It was very pleasant, even (when dark clouds didn’t cover the sun) hot. Around the patio were various plants—the geraniums that are omnipresent in Hamburg, what looked like pots of not-yet-blooming oleanders, grape vines. There was also a stone lion on a board across a corner of the railing.

One of the things that strikes me so much as we walk around Hamburg is how artistic Germans are. Even ordinary objects are imbued with grace, or have their hidden grace brought out, by the simple but effective ways in which they’re arranged. Old wooden wheelbarrows filled with pots of geraniums, begonias, etc. Wooden barrels are half cut off and filled with flowers. Shop windows are artfully arranged.

At a house and garden shop we stopped at this morning, for example, lentils were strewn around pottery, kitchenware, china—all arranged to catch the eye and bring out the color and form. And all is spotlessly clean; the stereotypes about German industry and cleanliness seem to have much truth. A cleaning woman cleans our rooms thoroughly each morning, and I saw another woman out sweeping the walkway in front of the Akademie early. Every toilet in the Akademie has a bottle of cleanser and a brush next to it.

Another striking thing is the lace curtains one sees in many of the spotless windows. These often have a windowbox of geraniums beneath them, a vase of flowers, a candle, or a wreath of some sort inside the window.

In the morning, after breakfast, we shopped at a market street nearby the Akademie. There were fruit shops, delicatessens, two bakeries, shoe shops, the house and garden shop, etc. All were so inviting we wanted to stop in each. The fruit in the fruit shop is so beautiful one wants to buy it all—flats of large but not plastic-looking strawberries, cherries, raspberries, luscious apricots. And the house and garden shop was full of well-made kitchen items, tools, china, etc.

We visited one of the bakeries and bought almond crescents and almond-topped pastry and brown bread. At a deli we bought cherries, orange juice, and mineral water.

After dinner, Steve and I walked to Blankenese. We went up one of the little streets, in reality a set of stairs forming a narrow alleyway between houses. The town is so beautiful—tile-and-straw-roofed houses painted white, lace curtains, interesting brass ornaments on the houses. A Wäscherei, for instance, shows a washerwoman and a pot of wash on a pole outside the house.

And the gardens: roses of every color, blooming lushly. Delphiniums, daisies—all “arranged” to look natural; nothing marching in rows. One house was framed by purple rhododendrons and other pink and purple flowers, with a red climbing rose and daisies.

N.B. Must remember to send a copy of my social gospel and feminism articles to Wolfram W. and Dorothee S.

In our discussion, Dorothee Sölle pointed out that many of the prayers I have chosen foster a spirituality of God over-against or above us. I need to survey these prayers and weed out those that foster such a view.

Hamburg, 10.6.1990: Labskaus and Fassbinder Characters

Arrived in Hamburg at 9 A.M. It’s now 4 P.M. Wolfram W. met us and brought us to the Missionsakademie where we’re staying. When we got there, the director, Herr K., served us coffee, and we sat around for an hour or so talking with him and Wolfram. Then we slept till now—still very exhausted.

What we’ve seen of Hamburg: green in a lush cool way reminiscent of Newfoundland the June I was there—the sort of windswept grasses one associated with a Northern coastal area.

The area of the city we’re in is posh, once the estates of the church, with fine houses surrounded by beautiful gardens, overlooking an ugly and far too industrialized Elbe.

6 P.M. Steve and I walked on the Wandernweg across the Elbchausee along the Elbe. It’s a fine, warm afternoon, sunny. Lots of rhododendron blooming, and non-hybrid roses, with elder and what looks like caraway or Queen Anne’s lace, but I don’t think is either.

The Wandernweg has benches, a sandy foot-and-bike path, and (in the area we walked) a few cafés. None looked particularly interesting. All were full of people sitting and drinking. More interesting to me were the many shops and Konditorei we passed as we drove to the Missionsakademie.

My room overlooks a little yard bordered by shrubs, among them mock orange. I’m sitting looking out the window and listening to birdsong. It’s very pleasant.

10:15 P.M. Just returned from dinner and a drive around Hamburg. Wolfram took us to the Fischerhaus, a fish restaurant on the waterfront, in the St. Pauli district. I have labskaus, a Hamburg dish of corned beef hash mixed with potatoes and fish and beet salad juice. It’s served with pickled beets and cucumbers. Very tasty. Steve had matjes in dill sauce, and Kathleen, Abner, and Wolfram fish in bierteig—a huge platter of fried fish and potato salad.

Afterwards we walked for a bit on the waterfront across from the restaurant. The restaurant was packed, with people who looked as if they stepped out of a Fassbinder film: two short stocky dark men, each with a squint eye and hair cut so it stood straight up on their heads; young men in black leather jackets; hefty matrons who had puffy uncombed white hair and sucked hungrily on cigarettes before supper and put their glasses on to eye their plates hungrily, eyes wide, when they were served. All these in a glass-enclosed restaurant with a black waiter and a German one who looked as if he had been shot in the forehead at some point in his life.

Then to town: I’m so tired, and the beer I drank at supper exacerbated this, that I benefited little from the drive. We drove through the Reeperbahnstrasse, then into the old section of town, the one medieval street not destroyed by fire in the two wars. Then to the university, where a street is named for Salvador Allende, and where a synagogue destroyed in Krystallnacht has been partly reconstructed as a memorial. Then along the other river, the Alster, where very posh houses with beautiful gardens front onto a parkway along the river. We ended with a driving tour of Blankenese, a former fishing village of steep winding streets with houses and shops fronting directly onto them. And now bed.